Entering the word "All" will find documents
containing the word "all" but not "allegorical." You can use
wildcards to broaden the scope of the search. "All*" will return
documents containing both "all" and "alliterate." Case is ignored.

You can enter multiple words separated by commas:
software, Microsoft, Oracle. The comma is treated like a
logical OR. If you omit the commas, the query expression is treated as a phrase, so
documents would be searched for the phrase "software Microsoft Oracle."

Operators are normally surrounded by angle brackets < >. However, you
can use the AND, OR, and NOT operators without using angle brackets:
software AND (Microsoft OR Oracle). To include an operator in a search, you surround it
with double quotation marks: software "and" Microsoft. This expression searches
for the phrase "software and Microsoft."

Explicit query expressions

Explicit queries can be constructed using a variety of
operators. Most
operators in an explicit query expression are surrounded by angle brackets < >. You
can use the AND, OR, and NOT operators without angle brackets.

Syntax

You can use either simple or explicit syntax when stating
simple query syntax.

Operator summary

An operator represents logic to be applied to a search
element. This logic defines the qualifications a document must meet to be retrieved.
Operator types are as follows:

Wildcards

Proximity operators

Relational operators

Ordinarily, you use operators in explicit searches. They
are used in the following manner:

"<operator>search_string"

Wildcards

The following wildcard characters are available for
searching:

Wildcard Characters

Wildcard

Description

?

Question. Specifies any single
alphanumeric character.

*

Asterisk. Specifies zero or
more alphanumeric characters. Avoid using the asterisk as the first character in a search
string. Asterisk is ignored in a set, [ ] or an alternative pattern { }.

[ ]

Square brackets. Specifies one
of any character in a set, as in "sl[iau]m" which locates "slim,"
"slam," and "slum." Square brackets indicate an implied OR.

{ }

Curly braces. Specifies one of
each pattern separated by a comma, as in "hoist{s, ing, ed}" which locates
"hoists," "hoisting," and "hoisted." Curly braces indicate
an implied AND.

^

Caret. Specifies one of any
character not in the set as in "sl[^ia]m" which locates "slum" but not
"slim" or "slam."

-

Hyphen. Specifies a range of
characters in a set as in "c[a-r]t" which locates every word beginning with
"c," ending with "t," and containing any letter from "a" to
"r."

Searching for wildcards as literals

To search for a wildcard character in your collection,
you need to escape the character with a backslash (\). For example:

To match a literal asterisk, you precede the * with two
backslashes: "a\\*"

To match a question mark or other wildcard character:
"Checkers\?"

Searching for special characters as
literals

The following non-alphanumeric characters must be
preceded by a backslash character (\) in a search string:

comma (,)

left and right parentheses ( )

Double quotation mark (")

backslash (\)

at sign (@)

left curly brace ({)

left bracket ([)

less than sign (<)

backquote (`)

In addition to the backslash character, you can use
paired backquotes (` `) to interpret special characters as literals. For example, to
search for the wildcard string "a{b" you can surround the string with
backquotes, as follows:

`a{b`

To search for a wildcard string that includes the literal
backquote character (`) you must use two backquotes together and surround the whole string
in backquotes:

`*n``t`

Note that you can use either paired backquotes or
backslashes to escape special characters. There is no functional difference in the use of
one or the other. For example, you can query for the term: <DDA> in the following
ways:

\<DDA\> or `<DDA>`

Proximity operators

Proximity operators specify the relative location of
specific words in the document. Specified words must be in the same phrase, paragraph, or
sentence for a document to be retrieved. In the case of NEAR and NEAR/N operators,
retrieved documents are ranked by relevance based on the proximity of the specified words.
Proximity operators can be nested; phrases or words can appear within SENTENCE or
PARAGRAPH operators, and SENTENCE operators can appear within PARAGRAPH operators.

The following table describes each operator:

Proximity Operators

Operator

Description

NEAR

Selects documents containing
specified search terms. The closer the search terms are to one another within a document,
the higher the document's score. The document with the smallest possible region containing
all search terms always receives the highest score. Documents whose search terms are not
within 1000 words of each other are not selected.

NEAR/N

Selects documents containing
two or more search terms within N number of words of each other, where N is
an integer between 1 and 1024 where NEAR/1 searches for two words that are next to each
other. The closer the search terms are within a document, the higher the document's score.

You can specify multiple search terms using
multiple instances of NEAR/N as long as the value of N is the same:

commute <NEAR/10> bicycle <NEAR/10>
train <NEAR/10>

PARAGRAPH

Selects documents that include
all of the words you specify within the same paragraph. To search for three or more words
or phrases, you must use the PARAGRAPH operator between each word or phrase.

PHRASE

Selects documents that include
a phrase you specify. A phrase is a grouping of two or more words that occur in a specific
order. Examples of phrases: